


put her love down soft and sweet

by lattely (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dancer Natasha Romanov, F/F, Femslash, First Kiss, Fluff, Lesbian Author, Pianist Sharon Carter, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25547149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lattely
Summary: Natasha is impossible to look away from, whether she moves or sits still, every bit as graceful and alluring as the swan she plays. In her long-sleeved black leotard and dark leg warmers, fiery hair slicked back into a severe bun, she looks like the ballerinas Sharon saw in her storybooks as a little girl, full of awe at the glamorous women balancing on their tiptoes in tulle and satin.
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26
Collections: Marvel Undercover 2020





	put her love down soft and sweet

**Author's Note:**

> my first foray into an f/f pairing! exciting times.
> 
> thank you so much to [zev](https://1dapologist.tumblr.com/) for looking over this and being so very sweet, and to anonymous for the prompt!
> 
> title, of course, from hozier's _work song_.

All the other dancers went home over half an hour ago, but Natasha is only now getting down to stretching.

The track to Odile’s solo doesn’t include a piano, so Sharon’s pretty much been sitting dormant the entire time Natasha was dancing, pretending to play 2048 as she watched her glide into one perfect pirouette after another. She could’ve very well left any minute she wished to, but if she moved, she’d throw Nat off her rhythm, and with opening night less than a week away, none of them can afford to disrupt the lead’s focus.

And, quite honestly - Sharon didn’t _want_ to leave. Natasha is impossible to look away from, whether she moves or sits still, every bit as graceful and alluring as the swan she plays. In her long-sleeved black leotard and dark leg warmers, fiery hair slicked back into a severe bun, she looks like the ballerinas Sharon saw in her storybooks as a little girl, full of awe at the glamorous women balancing on their tiptoes in tulle and satin. Nat is all long lines, all lean muscle pronounced under pale skin flushed rosy with exertion, and when she glides onto the main stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, her costume’s crystal-studded bodice glinting in the lights, she’s-

“Say, have you no one to come home to?” Natasha breaks the silence with her customary stolid bluntness, and Sharon twitches in her chair, blinking twice, then once again for good measure.

Nat is observing her, curled into pigeon pose; right leg tucked in front of her while the left is extended behind her in a straight line, her hands planted firmly on the mat she must have pulled out of her bag.

Sharon thinks about her roommates: Anja, with her tyrant-like dishwashing policies, and Vitaliya, who Sharon wants to murder every time she finds the shower drain clogged by thick black hair. They’re good women, smart - Vita’s studying veterinary science - but Sharon has been single ever since she moved to Moscow four years ago. She enjoys unlocking the door to an apartment filled with the smell of Anja’s famous pirozhki as much as the next person; her mother still badgers her about ‘finding someone nice’ when she calls from DC each Wednesday, though, and Sharon _is_ turning twenty six this year. She misses being kissed in the morning.

“I’m not in a relationship, if that’s what you’re asking me,” she says. Natasha watches her, something like calculation in her unnerving vulpine eyes, but then her mouth twitches in an amused approximation of a half-smile and she looks away.

“Play me something, then,” she says, folding herself forward so her torso lies flat against blue foam, and though with anyone else Sharon would raise her eyebrows and pointedly wait for a ‘please’, Nat is… an aberration. A contradiction that makes Sharon willing to break all of her own rules.

She sets her fingers to the cool ivory, at a loss for what to play. Briefly, she considers the Moonlight Sonata, but as undeniably beautiful as it is, it doesn’t align with Natasha. It’s too grave, too demure, all that she isn’t - she’s incendiary, astute, a razor-sharp dagger in a sheath lined with velvet.

Instead, she launches herself into the opening bars of _Un sospiro_ , and going by Natasha’s approving hum, she’s made the right choice.

“Liszt?” she asks, honey-smooth voice muffled by the downward angle of her head.

“Mm,” Sharon says, focusing on her fingerwork as she crosses her hands over the keyboard. This was one of the first ‘real’ pieces she’d learned, stubborn and fed-up with her teacher’s constant coddling; he’d pursed his mouth, said, _Alright, then,_ and pulled out the Three Concert Études out of one of his many cluttered drawers, arranging the sheet music in front of her with a flourish. She’d been elated, she remembers it. Happy to be treated seriously for a change.

She reaches the end of the étude, and when she looks up from the piano, she finds that in the five-minute span Natasha has moved on to the butterfly stretch. Her eyes are closed, slender fingers wrapped around her ankles to keep them from moving; in the black leotard, the curves and dips of her appear sculpted, as though smoothed out of clay. Sharon wonders how it would feel to cup her hands over Natasha’s hipbones and run them up, towards her ribcage, to feel her warm skin and count the knobs of her spine.

As if able to read her mind, Natasha’s eyes flash open, piercing green lodged in Sharon again like a shard of stained glass, and a hot flush spills over the apples of Sharon’s cheeks at being caught.

“More?” Nat requests, not acknowledging the guilt that must be written over Sharon’s face. Unspooling her legs instead, she lifts her left arm over her head and contorts herself to the right to stretch her obliques in a revolved head-to-knee. Sharon breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Natasha is kind, even placid, sometimes, but she can be acute when she wants to. She’d jabbed the guy playing Prince Siegfried in the throat when he’d tried to grab her ass without a trace of an expression on her face, only leveling the fool with an even stare when he’d coughed and spluttered, disbelieving. Sharon had half-expected her to poke fun, to sneer or at least smirk at her.

But Nat just looks, anticipating.

“Please,” Sharon admonishes this time, and Natasha smiles the way one does when particularly charmed by something cute, her cheeks dimpling shallowly.

“Please.”

With a nod, Sharon starts on _Clair de lune._ This one, she’d learned for her first girlfriend - the infatuation petered out, but the Debussy remained. It’s a cheesy thought, compliant with her old violin teacher’s mantra about music being the most faithful of lovers.

She never took to violin, not like her father had wanted her to, but she and her friends got many muffled laughs out of the way the teacher had waved her hands around, overly enthusiastic about Vivaldi’s prowess.

Out the corner of Sharon’s eye, Natasha rises to her feet and bends into a forward fold. Her bun is coming apart, red tendrils floating loose; Sharon averts her gaze, concentrating on the suite.

Nat straightens up just as the last note rings out, tucking the flyaway strands of hair behind her ears when she twists to look at Sharon, frozen at the piano. Her feet are in third position - maybe it’s a habit.

She cocks her head. “Wanna walk me out?”

Sharon doesn’t startle, but it’s a near thing.

“Sure,” she says, trying for her voice not to shake.

“Wait for me outside.” Natasha grabs her bag from where it’s sitting by the mirrored wall. “I’ll get dressed.”

***

The thing is, Sharon thinks as she leans against one of the eight pillars flanking the main entrance to the Bolshoi Theatre, she’s always been the pragmatic type when it came to crushes. For her, there was never any mooning, any helpless daydreaming; if she liked someone, she told them point-blank, and if they reciprocated the sentiment, well. All the better for everyone. When they’d been fighting once, sophomores in college and still dumb as dirt, her ex-boyfriend had told her she was too coarse - maybe that helped. She’s always feared rejection, but had never shown it.

With Natasha, though… God, everything is different with Natasha. She makes Sharon feel like an awestruck schoolgirl, unsure of every move. She’s got fury and passion and power contained in her five-foot-nothing frame, petite and yet larger than life, and Sharon is- perplexed. She’s perplexed, because no one in her life has ever made her _feel_ this much, and it’s like she’s at sea, alone on a boat with a torn sail, no way of getting to shore. She’s fucking _lost._

“What are you worrying about?” says a familiar voice, and now, Sharon _does_ jump, whirling towards where Natasha is standing, hands in the pockets of her green tartan coat. Her hair is out of its sleek bun, pulled back into a loose plait instead. The soft hairs at her temples are damp, sticking to the pale skin; she showered, then.

Sharon takes a deep breath. Now or never.

Her heart thumps against her ribcage like a fist trying to punch a hole into plaster.

“Natasha, I-”

“I know.”

Sharon clicks her mouth shut. Her heartbeat jumps in her throat. “Um.”

Nat comes in close, wearing a crooked smile that could be deemed mean by anyone who didn’t know her, but Sharon is familiar enough with the minuscule ways Natasha displays emotion to know otherwise. “The feeling is mutual,” she purrs, small hand settling in the crook of Sharon’s waist. “Very much so, душенька.”

They’re almost nose-to-nose, and Natasha smells so sweet: of orange blossom and vanilla, of candy and sex, so intoxicating that Sharon can’t bear the distance anymore and she leans down, sealing her mouth over Nat’s, finally tugging her in by the hips like she’s wanted to for the last four years.

The kiss is chaste, just a warm, slick press of lips, and yet when Nat pulls back, Sharon’s head spins like she just drank an entire bottle of wine, licking her lower lip to find a trace of Nat’s strawberry gloss.

Natasha grins, as gorgeous as the rare sight always is, made all the better by the fact that this time, she’s smiling for Sharon only.

“After opening night,” she says, both of her hands on Sharon’s shoulders now, flat over her collarbones, “take me to dinner.”

“Yes,” Sharon nods, stupefied and giddy. “Yeah, of course.”

Nat’s kohl-lined eyes soften, the green turning near-liquid. “Goodnight, then. I’ll be waiting,” she murmurs and stands on tiptoe to kiss Sharon’s flaming cheek before walking off into the frigid January evening, leaving Sharon with a prickling imprint of Nat’s mouth on her skin and a goodbye caught on her tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> душенька - darling


End file.
